If you look at the pencil test in South Africa, it comes out of the same mindset as the IQ test here. The US Army used what amounted to then big data in the 50’s to sort out 'irregulars' at a time when we were secretly dosing soldier 'volunteers' with LSD (no ethics). The IQ test itself came out of 1920’s KKK Southern White Christian post-reconstruction Jim Crowe era studies, along with racial theories, eugenics, and the study of the shape of the human skull to prove there was a genetic basis for intelligence.

The same SGI tech that led to Pixar involved nUrbs, non-uniform splines, is also used for facial recognition software. And there are racial characteristics used to approximate gender, age, race so computers can 'draw' or with AI smartDraw cartoonish characters. There are laws against racial profiling but no one really knows what the FBI’s carnivore email snoop program used, nor the Darpa proposed TIA to search massive databases.

I personally think it is all predicated by big data, it goes along with Nate Silver, moneyball, fantasy sports gambling, algos and then things predicated on this: gig economy, debt liquefied as asset, negative interest, rise of nationalism, ugly Americans and Trump.

Taste is relative. Disco was huge; until it wasn’t. The hegemony of homogeneity usually bursts like a bubble leading to a celebration of diversity. The AI needs to evolve. It isn’t going away. I’m often struck by the fact that the camera adds 15 lbs for models was something that could have been reversed with technology years ago, right? Is it the technology or our standards? I don’t know.

You offer a lot of food for thought.